


Things We Lost In The Fire

by jodiesroute



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26738662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jodiesroute/pseuds/jodiesroute
Summary: Pre-Canon.Julian and Jodie have to give up their memories of each other. They get a chance to experience them one last time before letting go.
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak
Kudos: 7





	Things We Lost In The Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of only two SFW chapters, considering I'll be going off of the Kinktober prompt list after the two-part prologue. Enjoy! 
> 
> CW: aside from MC death, this first chapter should be clean. Do let me know if you see something else that needs CWs.

Julian let his head fall into his hands. His mind foggy, his body heavy.  
It was the end of the line. As much as he kept telling himself he wasn’t going to give up, he knew. His whole life he had never been particularly strong. He wasn’t a magician or a warrior. He wasn’t powerful, but he had his mind. The mind that now was failing him. He felt it slowly slipping away. Sharp red pain throbbed behind his right eye, inside his skull, in the space between his eyebrows. Not much longer now before he couldn’t think anymore.  
“Is this…” he muttered to himself, cold palms pressing his eyelids shut “Is this how you felt?” he shivered. Sweet, stubborn Jodie. Did her mind give up, too? To think of her in that state made him gag. He could taste bile, swallowed it back down. He collapsed, folded over himself in his flimsy wooden office chair.  
“How does it feel, Ilya? Dying?” a cold voice behind him broke the silence of the small room. With strength he didn’t think he had left, Julian turned around. The unnaturally tall figure he saw, he recognized immediately. His dark feathers and sharp beak covered the pages of his journal. The Hanged Man.  
“Took you long enough” Julian smirked, straightening himself up. The pain was fading. “Am I dead?” he asked when he realized how easy it was to move.  
“Not exactly,” said the Hanged Man “you’re somewhere in between. For now.”  
“Why are you here?”  
“You asked for a deal, I am here to oblige.”  
Julian scoffed “Oh, now you are” he shook his head “So you have the answers I have been looking for?”  
“It depends, do you have the right questions?”  
Julian was silent for a moment, then effortlessly stood and stepped closer to the Hanged Man “How do I cure the plague?”  
“You’re a doctor, how do you determine how something is cured?”  
Julian shrugged “By finding what causes it?”  
The Hanged Man said nothing.  
“What causes the plague?” Julian tried again.  
The Hanged man smiled “Lucio causes the plague. Where he goes it follows. It has for a while now. A deal gone wrong, you see? He thought he knew what he wanted. I don’t think this is what he had in mind.”  
Without skipping a beat, without betraying any surprise, Julian spoke again “If I kill him, will the plague go away?”  
The Hanged man nodded.  
With a violent shudder, Julian bent over and puked on the floor. He sobbed and cursed, his screams echoed off the narrow walls, they felt like they were coming from someone else’s mouth.  
Jodie cried the day he finally got her to move into the palace. He pleaded for weeks until she just gave in. It would have been safer for her, and she could have still helped him work on a cure. But she had to get off the streets, leave her life behind. She had lingered on the doorstep of the shop before hanging the closed sign. She refused to speak to him for the rest of the day. He was just trying to protect her. How could he have known he was just bringing her closer to the source? How could he have known she’d never see the shop again.  
Patiently, the Hanged Man waited for him to find his composure again.  
“You knew? You’ve known all along? I could have killed the asshole years ago and she would still be alive?” Julian stared blankly ahead, in disbelief “Why are you only telling me this now? Where have you been all this time?”  
“You weren’t ready.”  
“Ready my ass! You useless piece of shit. I could have saved her, you…you could have saved her. You let her die. I let her die.”  
“These bargains don’t come cheap. I had to be sure you were willing to give up what needed to be sacrificed.”  
“My life?” Julian laughed drily “You come just at the right time for that. I am a finished man, I’ve got nothing left to lose.”  
“Why so dramatic, Ilya?” the Hanged Man raised an eyebrow “If I needed you dead I could have just waited. A few more hours I’d say at this point.”  
“What do you want then? I’m ready to give up anything. All of me.”  
“It’s not yourself I need you to give up. It’s Jodie.”  
Tears blurred Julian’s vision again, he didn’t care to push them back at this point. “She’s gone. There’s nothing of her for me to give up.”  
“You have your memories.”  
Julian’s eyes widened, he shook his head “You’ve got some nerve.”  
The Hanged Man laughed “Tell me, would you really have killed Lucio then, to save her?” the Hanged Man’s voice was calm, amused even.  
“Yes” Julian clenched his jaw and looked straight into the Hanged Man’s black eyes.  
“But you would have been sentenced for murder, you would have lost her anyway.”  
“She would have been alive, that would have been enough.”  
“Many people have died, Ilya. You know, you’ve seen them. They all meant something to someone. If you end this you can really make a difference. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”  
“I know” Julian looked down, away. His hands were shaking “I am sorry. I am so sorry for everything. But I can’t. If I forget her then there really is nothing left of her. I can’t do it.”  
He closed his eyes for a moment and saw Jodie, so close he could count the freckles on her nose. He held on to that image of her for as long as he could.  
“Oh, there will be plenty left.” The Hanged man paused “You’re not the only one who asked for something the other night.”  
“What do you mean?” Their eyes met again.  
“Sweet Asra gave up half of himself to bring her back. And you thought you were the self-sacrificing type” The Hanged Man smirked at Julian’s stunned look.  
“She’s alive?”  
“She’ll be, soon enough.”  
“I have to see her.”  
“That would be useless, she won’t know who you are.”  
“I don’t care. She loved me once, she will love me again. She’ll know me.”  
“Don’t fool yourself.” the Hanged Man shook his head “The plague will take the city. None of you will last long without a cure. A cure you couldn’t find. I leave, you die in this dungeon.”  
“So I lose her either way?”  
The Hanged Man nodded.  
“If I do this, give up my memories…kill Lucio, she’ll be okay? You promise?”“I don’t do promises, doctor. What I can do is leave you with a little parting gift. Sure, you won’t recognize her, but you’ll be able to protect her. If you find her. If she lets you.”  
“I’m in” said Julian without thinking “If she’s out there I’ll find her.”  
“You seem excessively confident for someone who didn’t even know she was sick .”  
Julian pushed away the urge to vomit again, he sat back down on the chair instead. He was exhausted, he could feel his heavy body again as he spoke softly now.  
“It doesn’t matter. I said I’m in. I just have one condition.”  
“Let’s hear it” said the Hanged Man.  
“I get to see them one last time. My memories, Jodie. I get to say goodbye.”  
“Very well then.”  
A white flash forced Julian’s eyes closed, he felt heat building up in his throat and his head pounded mercilessly. When he opened his eyes again he wasn’t in the dungeon anymore. He was standing in front of the magic shop, it was night. He could see the soft, warm light of candles from the window. It had been so long since he had smelled the tea leaves, the dark chocolate, the liquorice. He remembered that night, he knew what happened next.  
He took a step forward and knocked on the door.


End file.
